Drummer Hodge is about a young boy who has been killed and does not have a grave for himself. The only thing that shows where he is buried is a small hill above the mass grave. He never understood the meaning of war and foreign stars, who will always be there, will watch his dead body. The lack of ceremony in the burial of Drummer Hodge is ironic because he was a drummer and therefore linked to the ceremony of war. There is nothing to mark him out individually and he won’t be remembered as an individual.
In the first verse the poet sets the scene with very forceful language ‘They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest’. This sentence tells the readers that other soldiers were treating Drummer Hodge terribly without any care or respect. The next line tells us that the body was left ‘just as found’.
The tone in this poem is very solemn and sounds like a narrator is telling the story. It is written with a solemn words referring to South African terms or words to show that the war was in South Africa. The writer uses an AB form of rhyme scheme.
The poet conveys the sense of loneliness of the boy and unknowingness by making everything foreign. He only uses the word ‘foreign’ once but the words he uses conveys the idea. This shows the reader the boy will never be back at home.
In this verse the poet uses enjambment to show that there will be no end for the boy’s death out in the foreign land of which he knew nothing. This is partly shown by the use of enjambment because the sentence does not run out; it carries on to the next line like the eternity of death.
The end of the poem makes the reader think of all the people who die for the war. His body will become part of that land which he never knew about or knew about the reasons of war, he can never be returned home to his family and in the sky above his body, southern hemisphere stars different from home will be there for eternity.
In this poem war is displayed as cruel and with no point; young boys were asked to fight and they did not know the reason for it. They were badly respected after they died because war was politics and people tried to forget the millions of dead men.
Vox Militantis written by B. Paul Neuman is also about the deaths of men in the Boer war, but it is not about one man in particular. It tells the readers about the lives of many dead men all in the same position.
The title of the poem, Vox Militantis actually means voice of the soldiers. In this poem, the soldiers get a voice to explain why they fought. The poem opens similarly to ‘Drummer Hodge’ and focuses immediately on the, ‘wide veldt’. The descriptions of the landscapes are very similar to those in Drummer Hodge. Both of these poems are from the same war. In Vox Militantis, this theme is shown by the phrase, ‘…Boer and Briton lie…’ this means that the enemies will become part of the same land and be with it forever. Most of the poem is taken up by a conversation between the stars and the dead soldiers, the stars are asking the soldiers questions and the soldiers are explaining why they chose to fight.
The stars are seen as the voice of reason. The descriptions of them as ‘cold, calm, and brilliant’ have double meanings. The words ‘cold’ and ‘brilliant’ could mean unfeeling or cold or amazing or bright. ‘Brilliant’ not only refers to the physical brightness but also to the pure rationality and logic, which the stars represent. The poem has a very detached feel and the cold wisdom of the stars enhances this.
The poet uses very formal diction and tone is very solemn and simple also like Drummer Hodge. The tone is very mournful and melancholy, the poet uses language which conveys these and anger. The words he uses are very soft but the tone of it is very strong and against war. The philosophical tone is achieved through the use of caesura, dialogue and rhyming couplets, which stop the poem becoming dramatic and quick paced. The form of this poem is regular apart from two lines which have six stressed syllables rather than five like the other lines. The poet uses iambic pentameter which adds to the reflective feel of the poem.
From this poem the reader gets a sense of the bravery of the men, which is far stronger than in Drummer Hodge. We can see that the men in this poem are much less ignorant than those in Drummer Hodge and that this poet chooses not to show the naivety of the men as much.
The poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson leaves a lasting vivid memory of the great British victory over the Russians at the battle of Balaklava. In stanza one, Tennyson creates a vivid picture of the soldiers charging into the valley where the Russians were awaiting. His descriptive techniques paint a clear image of the six hundred men of the Light Brigade as they charge into the valley where they most surely meet their doom: ‘Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred’. The use of the metaphor helps to convey that the valley is where many men are soon to die.
The fact that there were only six hundred men is emphasised through the refrain in the last line of each stanza and helps to get across the feeling of drama and patriotism. The refrain changes in the fourth stanza to show the declining numbers and how outnumbered they were. Although the poem is in the past tense, there is a real sense of action and drama, which is reinforced by the direct speech in the first and second stanzas and the exclamation.
The idea of the soldiers going into the ‘valley of death’ also suggests to the reader that the poet and probably the soldiers knew that the charge meant certain death. This makes our feelings of the bravery of the soldiers stronger. At the time, this would have seemed normal behaviour for the soldiers and they would have been seen as heroic whereas in a modern context, we would question the orders.
The drama and patriotism in the poem is also communicated in the third stanza through the use of anaphora:
Canon to the left of them,
Canon in front of them’.
The context of the words and the descriptions of the canons’ positions give us an overall sense of the ceaseless bombardment that these men were under from all sides and makes the reader feel that the men were very brave and heroic. This is reinforced by the use of the word, ‘volley’ which shows that the canons were constantly firing on both sides of the men. The poet is appealing to the senses by using words such as, ‘thundered’ and the alliteration and sibilance of words such as ‘shot and shell’. We are overwhelmed with the furious pace of the battle and this makes us see the bravery and heroism of the men as well as feeling some pity for them. The personification used, ‘jaws of death’, ‘mouth of hell’, makes the poem far more descriptive and vivid and adds to our feelings of the bravery of the men.
Stanza six gives the reader an impression of how the poet wants us to remember the men as ‘noble’. Stanzas four and five give us the sense of activity, and the active verbs help us to comprehend the drama at the time, as do the emotive and physical verbs. This chaos increases our feelings of the heroism of the men and encourages us to obey the poet in stanza six when he tells us to;
‘Honour the Light Brigade,’
This is an example of the poet’s attitude to war and we can see clearly that the poet thought that the bravery and the heroism of the men were more significant and to be admired rather than feeling pity for them. The poet is clearer about his attitude towards war in this poem than the other poets. In Drummer Hodge the poet is not quite as clear as in Charge of the Light Brigade whereas in Vox Militantis, the poet appears to be weighing up the two sides of the argument in his mind, making his opinion much less obvious.
The poet in Charge of the Light Brigade talks about duty in stanza two, as does the poet in Vox Militantis. In Charge of the Light Brigade the poet also uses personification similar to Drummer Hodge but here the personification is used for a negative effect. This contrasts to Vox Militantis where personification is used for the stars and are looking down, protecting the men. In Charge of the Light Brigade the poet chooses to personify things which are bad to the soldiers.
All the poets manage to create their desired effect and leave a lasting impression on the reader of war and its harsh realities. From these poems, I know more of the horrors of war and I feel sympathy for the men, as well as admiration for their bravery and heroism.
